Cathie Wood Floats OUSD, But Says USDT and USDC Aren't Going Anywhere 🪙

Cathie Wood has said the Ripple-backed stablecoin OpenUSD may struggle to displace USDT and USDC, citing the entrenched network effects and operational integration already enjoyed by the two largest dollar-pegged tokens. According to remarks reported this week, the ARK Invest CEO argued that stablecoin adoption is driven by liquidity, trust, collateral use, and daily platform integration rather than brand support alone.

In a research note referenced by industry coverage, ARK Invest Director of Digital Assets Lorenzo Valente wrote a blog post titled "Why USDT and USDC are harder to kill than crypto Twitter thinks," cautioning that many market participants may be overly optimistic about the power of the OUSD launch. The firm framed stablecoins as monetary networks whose value rises with adoption by user bases, exchanges, wallets, and payment companies — moats that Tether and Circle have spent years building across crypto trading, payments, and DeFi.

OpenUSD was introduced last month by Open Standard, a venture led by Stripe-owned Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams. The stablecoin is expected to be released later this year and is designed to lower adoption costs by eliminating issuance and redemption fees, sharing the majority of reserves with participants, and operating under independent governance. More than 140 companies spanning payments, banking, crypto, and technology have been associated with the project, with Ripple and others publicly aligned.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has separately questioned the reserve-sharing model underpinning OUSD, the article noted, signaling ongoing skepticism from incumbents even as new entrants court institutional partners. The pushback highlights the strategic stakes for Circle, which issues USDC and has positioned its compliance-focused reserves as a differentiator in a market where Tether's USDT remains the highest-volume stablecoin by trading activity.